Agricultural Groups Continue Pressure to Immediately Pass TPA
Dozens of U.S. agricultural producers and industry associations, along with Wal-Mart, urged Congress on Feb. 5 to pass Trade Promotion Authority “as quickly as possible,” in a letter to House and Senate members. TPA will usher in free trade agreements that slash barriers to trade, and U.S. agricultural is poised to benefit significantly from an expanding U.S. trade agenda, said the letter (here).
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The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will help U.S. agriculture access Asian and European markets, to the benefit of the American economy, said the letter. “These farm and food exports have a positive multiplier effect throughout the U.S. economy,” said the letter, which was signed by the National Pork Producers Council, the National Chicken Council and others. “Every $1 in U.S. farm exports is estimated to stimulate an additional $1.27 in business activity. Off-farm activities and services include purchases by farmers of fuel, fertilizer, seed and other inputs as well as post-production processing, packaging, storing, transporting and marketing the products we ship overseas.”
House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made a pitch for TPA in an address on Feb. 5, the same day the agricultural groups pushed Congress to act. Ryan said Japan and Canada should leave TPP talks, if they’re unwilling to make adequate market access and regulatory concessions for U.S. agriculture exports (see 1502050019). U.S. agriculture has long criticized the Canadian supply management system for dairy, and U.S. negotiators have battled publicly for a year with their Japanese counterparts over agricultural tariff and non-tariff barriers.
TPA gives TPP and TTIP partners confidence in the U.S.’s ability to legislatively lock down the terms of the deal once negotiations conclude, the groups said. “Should Congress not pass TPA, it will signal to our TPP partners and to the world that we are turning our back on the fastest growing economic region in the world,” said the groups. “TPP can become the most important regional trade negotiation ever undertaken if the result is truly comprehensive.”